quote:Posted by 7thHeaventhis article makes me crazy. what does this dude usually write about? he needs to trot his ass over to amazon and grab a copy of last night a dj saved my life. nothing irritates me more than when someone who clearly can't stand something and is misinformed about it (in this case dance music and the history of) decides to write a mock smart article (using politics!! gawd!!) on "why it is bad".

See, now you've just made yourself look incredibly silly , why don't you google Philip Sherburne and Pitchfork and see how many hundreds of articles you get ...

I think he was commenting on the link that PSherburne posted. Did you read it?

MSNBC runs a commentary this week that argues Democratic White House administrations inspire bad music because lefty musicians have less to complain about. The writer, Tony Sclafani, notes that Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" was No. 1 on the pop chart when President Obama took the oath of office.

He argues that eras of cheesy dance pop coincide with Democratic adminstrations: President Jimmy Carter's term paralleled the reign of disco, and President Bill Clinton's era saw the dawn of pop house and trance (Haddaway's "What is Love," featured in A Night at the Roxbury and those derivative Pepsi commercials, broke in 1993). In contrast, he notes, Bruce Springsteen hit it big during the Reagan era.

"When musicians are dissatisfied with presidential administrations, they write protest songs, march on Washington and mouth off on stage," Sclaflani writes. "When they’re happy, they make dance music. ... Pop music is usually at its best when artists challenge the status quo and another period of non-stop dance songs will definitely make the music industry even more irrelevant."

It's an argument filled with holes big enough to drive a disco through. For one, it's not necessarily true that dance music and Democratic administrations go hand-in-hand. The Republican Reagan era saw the birth of electro, techno and new wave. A whole generation of Americans was raised on the sounds of Depeche Mode, New Order and the Thompson Twins. It was also the period that spawned Madonna and Michael Jackson, arguably the top-selling dance music artists in history. And hip-hop, arguably a form of dance music, certainly found its anti-establishment voice (Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions, Grandmaster Flash, N.W.A., 2 Live Crew and on and on).

What's more, the argument assumes that dance music is inherantly bad and lacking in sociopolitical meaning. Anyone who has read Love is the Message or seen the documentary Maestro knows that both of those assumptions are preposterous. In fact, contemporary dance music grew out of the gay, black and Latino communities and their desire to establish an alternate channel of expression.

Proto-disco (see David Mancuso, the West End label, et. al.) embraced deep, soulful elements of dance music and often proclaimed its independence not only from the record industry but from the mainstream politics of the day. It wasn't until the mainstream record industry coopted disco in the latter half of the '70s that the bad music started to appear (Dolly Parton remixes, etc.), helping to give fuel to the "disco sucks" movement that was really about gay bashing more than it was about music good or bad.

Mired in a tired '60s paradigm, the writer falls lock, stock and barrell for the false argument that rock-based protest music and poetic pop are the only roads to artistic salvation in recording. It really puts him in the same corner as the apes who rioted against disco at Comiskey Park in 1979. The real alternative-lifestyle and anti-establishment vibes were happening at underground dance clubs like the Paradise Garage in Manhattan at the time. The "disco sucks" movement was the mainstream's way of denying the undergound, the diverse, the anti-establishment and the disaffected by returning America to the beer-and-blue-jeans of good ole' rock 'n' roll.

In the 1990s, rave culture had an undercurrent of rebellion and disatisfaction as well. It was, in fact, grunge rock that was mainstream, tired and somewhat conformist. Grunge, as you recall, harkened back to punk rock, which already had its true heyday in the '70s (yes, the Carter Administration '70s). There was nothing fresh, new or transformative about grunge. The only redeaming value for most aging rock critics of the time was that they could hang their hat on a sound that felt familiar to the genres of their youth. Rave culture welcomed the true outcasts, the bell-bottom of hippies of Haight-Ashbury, and added a new psychedelic drug - ecstasy - to the mix for good measure. Acid made a comeback. Many events were inherantly illegal, for Chrissakes. How outside the mainstream can you get? And the music framed new concerns: Dubtribe's "Mother Earth" shouted, "I want my my planet back!" This during a Democratic administration.

Sclafani also assumes that dance music is a mainstream industry tool. A visit to the Winter Music Conference would refute that. Most dance music (I know I'm preaching to the choir here) is fiercely indie because the mainstream industry will have none of it. Sure, the ocassional Gaga gets signed, but that's the exception rather that rule. Dance music, for better or worse, is the alternative. It's surprising to find a mainstream media that often still doesn't get that.

quote:Posted by 7thHeaventhis article makes me crazy. what does this dude usually write about? he needs to trot his ass over to amazon and grab a copy of last night a dj saved my life. nothing irritates me more than when someone who clearly can't stand something and is misinformed about it (in this case dance music and the history of) decides to write a mock smart article (using politics!! gawd!!) on "why it is bad".

See, now you've just made yourself look incredibly silly , why don't you google Philip Sherburne and Pitchfork and see how many hundreds of articles you get ...

I think he was commenting on the link that PSherburne posted. Did you read it?

quote:Posted by 7thHeaventhis article makes me crazy. what does this dude usually write about? he needs to trot his ass over to amazon and grab a copy of last night a dj saved my life. nothing irritates me more than when someone who clearly can't stand something and is misinformed about it (in this case dance music and the history of) decides to write a mock smart article (using politics!! gawd!!) on "why it is bad".

See, now you've just made yourself look incredibly silly , why don't you google Philip Sherburne and Pitchfork and see how many hundreds of articles you get ...

Totally mindless article that just keeps people in manufactured, controlled paradigms. In other words, nothing you wouldn't normally expect from MSNBC. Both Republicans and Democrats are bought and paid for by the very same banking interests who have engineered a worldwide financial collapse. Both McCain and Obama voted for the banker takeover. KRS-One has spoken out about this lately. I'm so sick of it. Please wake up!

this article makes me crazy. what does this dude usually write about? he needs to trot his ass over to amazon and grab a copy of last night a dj saved my life. nothing irritates me more than when someone who clearly can't stand something and is misinformed about it (in this case dance music and the history of) decides to write a mock smart article (using politics!! gawd!!) on "why it is bad".

Fancy having some artwork of one of your favourite DJs on your wall? Dutch website Heroes On Canvas are offering cotton prints of DJs including Jeff Mills, Adam Beyer and Derrick May, and a percentage of the profits will go to Aids charity Dance4Life.

XLR8R talk to Uwe Schmidt, the man behind Senor Coconut, to learn about how he puts together his records. "To me, making music is a big puzzle or a patchwork of all kinds of elements, only audio files."